NEW YORK  New York City police say a 49-year-old gay man leaving a corner deli near his home was beaten by two men in an apparent hate crime.

Jack Price remains in a medically induced coma. He is in serious but stable condition.

Police say the two suspects taunted Price and yelled anti-gay slurs while he was in the store early Friday. They attacked him outside, not far from his home in the middle-class Queens neighborhood of College Point.

Twenty-six-year-old Daniel Aleman was arrested Sunday and charged with assault and aggravated assault as a hate crime. The name of his attorney was not on record.

A second suspect is being sought. The police department's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.

So instead of assault, he get's charged with aggravated assault because he hated gays. What if these two guys had beat up someone else who wasn't gay in the same situation. If there were reports of these two guys screaming I hate you to a straight guy and then proceeded to beat him into a coma, they would be charged with regular assault, but since the guy was gay it aggravated hateful assault. And why does the police department have a hate crimes unit? Aren't most crimes pretty hateful?

I think we need mandatory minimum sentences instead of hate crime laws. The reason for hate crime laws is because people have got off with lenient sentences for committing their crimes off particular demographic groups.

For example the murderer of Sean Kennedy in South Carolina only got 3 years in jail, but if you assault someone so badly where their brain’s stem gets separated and their facial bones got broken its an insult.

So if someone assaults someone of any demographic group, they should get tougher sentences overall.

Mark my words - as more and more of these special thought crimes statutes get passed, homosexuals will be instigating fights themselves. Think about it - two men get in an argument. Now the homosexual will be more inclined to get into a physical fight, knowing that the other combatant will be prosecuted more harshly. George Orwell predicted as much.

In the late 1970s, I was a college student in Atlanta. On those visits home, I’d take a Greyhound Bus from Atlanta-Chattanooga and return. From bus station to campus was a trek through the downtown ‘projects’ (no longer there - torn down / replaced during the 1996 Olympics). I’d often make that walk between midnight and 1AM and was never bothered.

However, on one bus ride travelling home, an older fellow, probably in his 50s sat beside me. He wanted me to stay at his place for the night and would pay me $50. He started rubbing my leg and was insistent that I join him.

As a 19 yo, I was both embarrased and disgusted at the same time. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. I got up, brushed past him, and got another seat. Further attempts would have made me mad enough to physically harm him - but he left me alone.

Had I slugged him, would it have been a hate crime? Today, probably so. After all, it would have been my word against his. We were both adults and there wouldn’t have been any proof he’d done anything.

Personally, I’d rather the gays just get back in the closet. If there are so many gay-haters out there looking to beat them up, wouldn’t it be safer for the gays? Turns out the out-of-the-closet, in-your-face gay movement is getting the special privleges they want ... and next they’re coming after our kids and grandkids.

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